Privileged Bodies, Silenced Voices - an intersectional analysis of the representation of Black masculinities in the House of Commons.

How are Black masculinities constituted within parliamentary debates, and what are the substantive effects of these representations? To address these questions, we conduct a quantitative and qualitative textual analysis of an original dataset of constitutive representations of Black men in UK House of Commons debates between 1997 and 2001. Drawing on Black feminist theory and existing scholarship on the representation of marginalised groups, we find that Black masculinities are rendered both invisible and hyper-visible within parliamentary debates. They are rarely explicitly mentioned, and when they are, it is primarily in relation to a narrow set of specific events such as deaths in custody and rioting. These representations construct black masculinity as associated negativity, violence, crime, and anti-social behaviour. Furthermore, the problematic nature of constitutive representations of black masculinity inhibits the substantive representation of Black men's interests as a marginalised group. This paper responds to urgent calls for research on representation which takes intersectionality into account, as well as improving our understanding of the relationship between constitutive and substantive political representation.